The Fallen
by Ninken ears
Summary: A young monk tries to find the answers he has been searching for after the loss of his closest friend. What he finds instead is a side of himself he didn't know exsisted. Death, Sex, Violence...and things of a morally gray nature.


_This is fic is based on the RO games. The universe has been bent to fit my will and alot of extra stuff has been added. RoxanneN's Fic Way of the Fist was the inspiration and I can say, this fic is pretty much in the same universe her fic is...XD. It's just for fun I had a little idea that became this...so here it is._

_This story is by Ninken Ears...me...So...there will be violence..death...sex and things of a **dark** nature._

_It's what I do._

_You have been warned.-_-_

* * *

A soft touch on his shoulder roused him from his quiet thoughts as he sat on the fallen tree at the entrance to the training grounds, and stared off into the distance out at the sun rising above the forest that surrounded his little abbey. He knew who it was without turning. He could pick her soft presence out from anywhere, she felt like a deep sigh of relief on a sleepy summers day. Just being near her loosened the tight knots he constantly carried between his shoulders. "Morning Taisia."

The older woman shook her head and pursed her lips before sitting beside him with a small smile. "I swear one day I'm going to get angry and force you to call me sensei."

"Is it going to be today?" He asked quietly keeping his eyes trained on the distance.

She quirked her lips in thought, wrinkled her nose and turned her face to glance at her odd student. "No. Not today. I'm much too busy. Happy twenty-second birthday Lukas."

That got a smile out of him. He shook his head, looked toward his teacher and nodded. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. I'm going into Payon this morning with Satheus to help him barter for some goods the abbey needs. Did you want to come?" She asked already well aware of his answer.

"Uhh..." He winced and ran his hand over his short-cropped hair. No he really didn't. He hated going into Payon with those two. They spent decades haggling over prices of beans and flour. "I was going to-"

"Think up an excuse not to go as quickly as possible?" She laughed lightly, her blue eyes meeting his hazel ones with a knowing gaze.

"Yeah…I was going to do that." He nodded and chuckled evenly. "I'll go if you want me to though." He shrugged and nodded toward the bag at her feet.

"No that's ok Luk. I'll see you tonight. Take the day off. No practicing and that is an order from your sensei." She stood up from beside him and shouldered her pack before holding her arms out to him. "Now give an old woman a hug so she can feel a little younger."

Lukas smiled and rolled his eyes. Taisia was not a young woman, the faint streaks of grey in her dark hair and the small wrinkles around her eyes were proof of that, but she was far from old. "You're not old Taisia. " He reproached as he stood up with a yawn.

"I'm forty-three Lukas. Now give me a hug I have something for you."

He obliged her and bent down to wrap her in a tight embrace. After eight years of training under her he was still amazed at how hard this tiny little woman could hit. She only came to his chest and yet she had knocked him out so many times he was worried about potential long-term brain damage. "You didn't have to get me anything." He muttered as he stood back and watched while she dug in one of her pockets.

"You always say that…. Then you sulk around for hours when I don't listen to you and do it anyways. Honestly Lukas, who gets upset when they are given a present on their birthday?" She huffed out her response without looking up to see his abashed face. "Here." She held out a tiny envelope to him and dropped it in his hand.

"What is it?" He asked suspiciously

"A birthday present." She asked and gazed at the paper in his hand just as suspiciously as he did.

"Taisia..." He mumbled, uncomfortable with the display of kindness, as he slowly opened the package. He pulled out a leather corded necklace, a pale stone in the center with strange symbols cut into it. "What...?" He asked with a questioning gaze.

"It was my father's from a long, long time ago. I suppose I was meant to give it to my son or daughter...but..." She held out her hands to show the emptiness at her sides. "You'll have to do I guess..." She gave him a small smile and took the necklace motioning for him to turn around.

"I uhh..it's…it's really..but...I don't think-" As she waved her hand in a twirling motion he stumbled over his words, turned around obediently and slouched to make himself shorter for her.

"I know you don't. I always say it's one of your biggest flaws." She quipped as she reached up and secured it around his neck.

Lukas's wry grin made reappearance. He had walked right into that one. He turned back around to face her when he felt her move away. He could feel the light weight of the necklace now settled on him with unfamiliarity. "Thank you Tiasia."

She nodded and patted his cheek as if he were just a boy and not a man grown. She had done it since as long as he could remember. "You're welcome Luk." She frowned as she stepped back toward the path. "Shave Lukas...you're all stubbly. It's very unsettling for me."

He rubbed his hand along his faintly shadowed jaw line and watched as she walked away. He looked down at the necklace and eyes jumped up to her retreating back as he realized something was amiss. "Taisia! Wait! What's it say?"

She turned her head back and offered him a small wave as she called out her reply. "Tree's are known by their fruit!"

"..By their fruit..?" He whispered to himself as he looked back down at the symbols on the pale square stone around his neck and laughed quietly. _Am I the fruit..or the tree? Maybe both._

* * *

He didn't need to open his eyes to know that it had all been a lie. He could hear the soft exhaled breaths from the other monks in their own small rooms. It wasn't that warm morning he had gotten a gift from his sensei.

He moved his hand up to touch the stone on his neck and ran his hand through his long unkempt hair after he assured himself it was still there._ It was a dream, a memory. Nothing but ashes._ Taisia never came back from that trip to Payon. Satheus had been found, brought back and healed, but he was never the same. Now he just wobbled around the abbey, with drool dripping down his chin while he laughed alone.

No-one knew what happened. No-one had any answers for him. Still three years later he knew nothing and it drove him mad. Time didn't heal all wounds, it only left the deepest to fester and rot. He still felt the empty hole where his mentor had been, and no matter how hard he worked and trained to become strong, to become something she would be proud of, the void persisted and he felt weak. He had tried to fill it with knowledge, he read books and studied to find out what could have happened to her, it only left him feeling useless and stupid. He tried to tell himself to move on and forget, but the ache mocked him and reminded him of how alone he had been all along.

He sat up and dropped his feet to the floor and rubbed his hands over his face, and the bed squeaked in protest to his abrupt movements. The small noise grated on his last nerve. "..God dammit! Why won't you let me have one nights fucking sleep?" He narrowed his eyes and looked toward the ceiling that was bathed in a silvery light from the moon that slipped through the windows.

"Is that you Lukas?" A wizened old voice croaked down the hall toward him, the vanguard of a willowy shadow that appeared in the darkness of his doorway.

He winced and did not answer. _Maybe he will just go away._

The old man nodded at the resounding silence and creaked into the room. His cane tapped out an irritating rhythm with his unsure, shuffled gait and Lukas had to fight off a surge of irrational anger that stemmed from the sound. "I knew it was…. You never sleep young man and when you do they can hear you moaning all the way in Prontera." The old man remarked

"Sorry." Lukas shrugged. "I have tried everything given to me and everything you have prescribed for me to do. Nothing works."

"Ahh..but I think that something would work. If only you would listen to me a little closer...What were you doing in here? " Tobias asked as sunk down beside the younger monk slowly and with great effort.

Lukas looked again toward the ceiling." Praying..."

"Blaspheming is closer to the truth…" Tobias replied nonplussed.

"The two are narrowly separated in some eyes."

"Your eyes should not be included in that count."

"Is there something I can help you with Tobias?" Lukas huffed out in irritation. He was done with the old headmasters preaching. Everything that fell from the man's mouth was a lecture to change and see the world differently_. Through the eyes of a true monk_.

The old man sighed deeply. The frightened boy Taisia brought back to the abbey was a far cry from the man that sat beside him. At one time he had an aura much like a light jacket that would keep you dry and comfortable in a summer storm. Now felt like a heavy woolen blanket, dripping wet and cold. It was smothering, heavy and could make breathing almost a painful endeavor when you were around him and he was in a mood, which he almost always was these days.

The longer time stretched from Taisia's untimely death the more morose, dejected and isolated Lukas turned. He couldn't seem to cope with the loss. It ate at him daily and eroded the man he used to be. He couldn't accept the reality of what had happened and he strove for the answers no-one could find. He was so lost and he couldn't even see it. "Oh Lukas. How I wish you could feel how your presence has changed...and so much more…" The old headmaster whispered almost painfully.

"So you have said before. I'm tired of apologizing to you for everything you think I do wrong Tobias." He bit out harshly.

"It's not wrong my boy. You just need to let go of what is weighing you-"

Lukas interrupted before the old man could begin his speech again. He could practically recite it word for word after hearing it so many times. "I've made a decision Tobias. I'm leaving. It's time for me to get out in the world before I go to Juno. I need to get away from here. I am stuck here...and… only that will help."

"We are not a prison Lukas. We are your friends..." Tobias lifted his hand and gently scraped it against the younger mans temple. "You...you are your own prison... and you have locked yourself away in here… and you pace alone..."

He brushed away the old man's hand briskly. "I do no such thing. I need permission to leave; I have no official sensei...will you let me go?"

"I wish you would reconsider..."

"There is no other choice. I am strong enough, that I know."

"There is always another choice...and it is not your strength that worries me...you need to heal Lukas I can feel your pain...we all can. You torment yourself for no reason." Tobias pleaded in a whispered voice, spilling the truth Lukas never wanted to hear.

"I am not tormented, you're being dramatic. I just need to get away and breathe." He replied and refused to listen to Tobias's sympathetic words.

"You will leave even if I say no...I can tell…" He mumbled with a sad shake of his head. "Taisia would not agree with this Lukas, you know it's true. You are not whole..."

He scowled deeply in barely disguised anger and stood not looking at the headmaster. "She's dead. She can't agree or disagree with anything anymore."

"She is dead, it's true...but have you forgotten all she had taught you?"

"I forget nothing... it's everyone else that seems to have forgotten and given up." He threw a hand up in the air in frustration.

"You remember the lessons, yet you forget the woman and what she tried so hard to show you. Look at yourself Lukas. Would she even recognize you if she saw you today?" Tobias answered with more malice laced into his words then he intended.

Lukas paused in front of the mirror above his rickety dresser and quickly turned away. The dark moonlit reflection that stared back at him was a shadow of the man Taisia had known. His blonde hair was long, disheveled and tied back, his jaw was covered in a thick short beard and his eyes were dark and lined with exhaustion._ No she would not recognize me. I don't recognize me._ He clenched his jaw in fury with himself and with the world."Let me go Tobias…"

The old man exhaled miserably and the silence grew between like the dark shadows on the walls until he was moved to answer. "Can you promise that you will come back to us a better man than you leave us?"

"I can try but I will not promise..." Lukas sighed in defeat as a wave of weariness washed over him. He felt as worn and tired as the old man who perched on his bed.

"Then go with my blessings and not with my curses Lukas. I hope you find your way..."

"Me too..."

* * *

It only took him a few hours to gather his belongings and say what he needed to the people he felt obligated toward, like Satheus who only patted his hand and laughed like a fool when he tried to make him understand he was leaving. At least he was happy.

There were many people he knew, and none he could truly call friends anymore. They had all fallen to the wayside in his quest to fill the wound left behind by Taisia's sudden death. His time had been more prudently spent training and studying, not watering the seeds of friendship with people who gave up so easily. Most of them he held in bitter contempt, for in his eyes, they did not try hard enough to find out what had happened that day on the road back from Payon. So the goodbyes were curt and dismissive as they wished him the best of luck, probably not caring, and he did the same to them, actually not caring.

His departure passed without much note, no-one came to see him off and he didn't look for a friendly wave at the gates. He shouldered his pack, rolled his muscled shoulders under the weight, and lifted his hand to the carved stone on his neck. His new life would begin now. He would find himself and his way. He would discover how to fill the emptiness inside that ached to be heard. He would find others like himself and gain knowledge and power.

He was a monk; he had a purpose and a destiny. This was what he needed to do to figure out what that purpose was.

He hoped.

* * *

**A/N**

_If for some reason...someone ends up following this..besides myself...just know that it's not my main work right now. When I finish ItF it will be but until then the updates are not going to be quick..I just got distracted with this idea and ended up writing out the first chap._

_Ninken Ears._


End file.
